Working with Drafts and Auto Save

Drafts and Auto Save automatically save your changes while you edit entries in Contentstack. This reduces the risk of lost work and supports safe collaboration when multiple users work on the same entry.

Instead of manually saving every update, Contentstack maintains a draft in the background. Your changes automatically save and sync with other active users viewing the same entry, while field-level locking prevents conflicting edits.

Drafts and Auto Save provide:

• Automatic draft updates during editing
• Real-time collaboration across users
• Field-level locking to prevent overwrites
• Draft comparison before saving or publishing
• Clear save-status indicators in the editor

How Drafts and Auto Save Works

Drafts and Auto Save creates and updates drafts based on your editing activity.

Draft Creation Triggers

A draft is created or updated when you perform actions such as:

• Editing a field by entering, updating, or removing content
• Confirming changes in a reference or file selection modal
• Interacting with a custom field (iframe-based)

Contentstack uses a debounce mechanism, which means the system waits briefly after editing activity pauses before saving changes. This prevents excessive background save requests while ensuring your updates are captured.

Draft Lifecycle

The draft lifecycle follows this sequence:

1. You begin editing an entry.
2. Contentstack creates or updates a draft automatically.
3. Changes sync continuously while you edit.

At any time, you can:

• Continue editing
• Discard the draft
• Save or publish to create a new version

Draft changes remain available even if you refresh the page or close the browser tab.

Draft vs Version

Understanding the difference between drafts and versions helps you manage content more effectively.

Draft

• Represents in-progress changes
• Updates automatically
• Does not create a new major version
• May include multiple minor updates within a major version

Version

• Created when you click Save or Publish
• Appears in version history as a major version
• Represents a stable snapshot of the entry

Minor draft updates are grouped into a major version once you save.

Draft Retention

Auto Save maintains minor draft versions only for the most recent major versions of an entry.

Draft versions are retained for the latest five major versions. When a new major version is created, draft versions associated with older major versions are automatically removed.

This helps maintain a clean version history while still allowing teams to review recent draft changes.

Save Indicators

The entry editor displays real-time status indicators to confirm draft activity.

You may see:

• Syncing changes: Appears while your recent edits are being synchronized and saved as draft updates.
• Saved: Draft is up to date
• Edited just now: Indicates that the draft was saved moments ago.
• Edited a few minutes ago / Edited about 2 hours ago: Indicates the time elapsed since the most recent auto-save. This value updates dynamically as time passes.

These relative time indicators reflect the most recent draft update and help collaborators understand how recently the entry was modified.

Entry List Indicators

The Entry Listing page visually reflects the draft status of entries.

• Entries with draft changes display a Draft status indicator.
• Entries that have not yet been published also display the status Draft.
• Advanced Search includes a filter for entries with draft changes.

These indicators help users quickly identify entries that are still in progress.

Creating New Entries with Auto Draft

When Drafts and Auto Save is enabled, clicking New Entry on the entry listing page immediately creates a draft entry. You can begin editing and collaborating without manually saving the entry first.

When Drafts and Auto Save is disabled, you must click New Entry and then click Save in the entry editor to create the initial version of the entry.

Collaboration and Conflict Handling

Drafts and Auto Save support controlled multi-user editing.

Field-Level Locking

When one user edits a field:

• That field becomes temporarily locked for other users
• Other users can still edit unlocked fields
• Updates appear shortly after they are saved

Locked fields prevent accidental overwrites.

Locking Behavior by Field Type

Locking behavior varies by field type:

• Input fields: Lock when typing begins
• Reference and file fields: Lock when the selection modal opens
• Container fields (Group and Modular Blocks):
  • Individual nested fields lock separately
  • Structural actions (add, delete, reorder blocks) are restricted if a nested field is locked
• Custom fields: Lock when users interact within the iframe

This approach enables parallel editing while maintaining content integrity.

Use Cases

Drafts and Auto Save are particularly useful when:

• Multiple editors update the same entry
• Long-form content requires extended editing sessions
• Teams collaborate across time zones
• Users frequently switch tabs
• When network stability is a concern
• Managers need visibility into in-progress work

Best Practices for Working with Drafts

Follow these best practices to ensure smooth collaboration and accurate version control when working with Drafts and Auto Save.

• Monitor the save indicators to confirm synchronization status
• Avoid editing fields that are currently locked
• Use draft comparison before saving major updates
• Discard drafts carefully if you want to revert to the last saved version
• Communicate with collaborators before making structural changes

Drafts and Auto Save protects your in-progress changes, supports safe collaboration, and maintains structured version control. By automatically saving edits and preventing overlapping updates, the feature allows teams to work confidently without losing progress or creating unnecessary versions.